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Our superheroes are jumping from comic book pages to the movie screen in increasing numbers, and comic fans have mixed feelings about it.

In many cases, they're happy with the transition. But sometimes they feel films destroy the spirit of the books.

Movie adaptations of "The Fantastic Four" and the Batman series are due out this summer, on the heels of the recent release of Frank Miller's "Sin City," with Hollywood hoping to match the big bank it attained with the earlier "Spider-Man" and "X-Men" films.MOre Here.

Racy fluff or reading aid? is from the Portland, Maine, Herald. They say Increasing numbers of school and public libraries in Maine are devoting shelf space to Japanese comic books, which have become hugely popular among adolescents.

The purpose is to lure young readers to libraries by giving them what they want. But some people dispute the value of books that feature female characters dressed in sexy outfits and sometimes behaving in ways that conform to sexist stereotypes.

Anonymous Patron writes "Almost two-thirds of the books bought in Belgium are comic books, according to a study published on Wednesday. Expatica Has More on the sudy that found EUR 232 million was being spent on books in French, with 62 percent on 'bande dessine' tales about Tintin and other comic characters."

An Austrian illustrator behind a comic that depicts Jesus as a laid-back, binge-drinking surfer is in the midst of an uproar.

A group of artists gathered in Vienna Tuesday to draw attention to Greece's ban of Austrian illustrator Gerhard Haderer's The Life of Jesus, a religious satire and playful re-imagining of the life of Christ. It is reportedly the first book the country has banned in more than 20 years.

slashgirl writes "'If you want to take the pulse of newspaper comic strips, look no further than Jim Davisâ€™s Garfield, a strip that nicely sums up both whatâ€™s right and wrong with the medium. Despite being about 20 years past its prime, the lasagna-obsessed, Monday-phobic feline remains immensely popular, boasting a readership of about 275 million worldwide. In 2004, it was picked up by an additional 50 newspapers, bumping its total syndication to some 2,620 newspapers and placing it in a tie with Charles Schulzâ€™s masterful Peanuts for the most syndicated strip of all time. '

Anonymous Patron writes "News From Seoul,South Korea on comic book at a rental shops and a new law. Popular comic books can be rented out an unlimited number of times, but, surprisingly, in Korea the authors of these comic books get no money no matter how many times their books are read by other people.
Until today, domestic copyright laws have not applied to rental shops and so the industry could avoid paying royalties to the creators.
However, after 18 years the government is trying to revise the copyright law, and governing party members on the National Assembly's culture and tourism committee began trying to draw up a revision bill on Feb. 16.
Legalizing a "rental copyright" has created a major dispute in the comic book industry, since the law would have a serious effect on it."